Wesker was frighteningly efficient.
Part of that came from the way Drex Valen had shaped his memories during creation, molding the man's personality into something razor-sharp and ruthlessly capable.
Even so, Drex still found the whole concept deeply unsettling.
If memories could shape personality, ideology, and behavioral patterns so completely, then changing someone's memories meant changing the entire person. Identity itself became editable. Rewritable.
That thought lingered in the back of his mind like a hairline fracture in glass.
Unlike Esdeath, Tifa, and Android 18, Wesker and Ada Wong had been born after Drex fully acquired the Phoenix Force's aspect of life creation. Because of that, the two of them were technically native lifeforms tied to the Marvel universe itself rather than external anomalies.
In other words, they weren't outsiders anymore.
They had been born here.
Drex still wasn't entirely sure what kind of long-term difference that would create, but he wasn't reckless enough to ignore the possibility. The Black Queen maintained round-the-clock surveillance on both Wesker and Ada Wong.
Compared to Gin, Wesker was on another level entirely.
More decisive. More disciplined. More dangerous.
Since his arrival, the atmosphere inside Umbrella had tightened like a steel cable pulled to its limit. Efficiency skyrocketed. Internal restructuring accelerated. Entire divisions moved with military precision.
Even Drex had to admit it.
Wesker was a rare talent.
The man understood how to kill, but more importantly, he understood how to manage people.
"So I need to secure the Mind Stone and the Soul Stone as soon as possible."
Drex leaned back in silence, thinking it through carefully.
With both the Phoenix Force and the Dragon Force in his possession, the Mind Stone and Soul Stone posed little direct threat to him personally. Their influence over his mind or soul would be heavily resisted.
But his subordinates were another matter entirely.
Those two Stones represented the greatest risk to his growing empire. A single lapse could turn loyal assets into enemies overnight.
Compared to that, the Time Stone and Space Stone were far less intimidating.
By now, Drex had already begun using electromagnetic force and gravity to reverse-engineer the strong and weak nuclear forces. Once all four fundamental interactions were fully under his control, resisting spacetime manipulation would no longer be especially difficult.
In truth, he suspected he could already create a true unified field theory if he abandoned certain scientific principles he stubbornly clung to.
That was the problem.
Abandoning those principles meant destabilizing the very foundation of his self-awareness.
If he pushed too far, he might end up observing himself into a quantum paradox. A living Schrödinger's cat.
Or worse.
Or perhaps better.
There was a nonzero chance he would collapse into something resembling Doctor Manhattan instead.
A quantum god.
Drex stared at the ceiling for several seconds.
Humanity or godhood.
That was one hell of a fork in the road.
Unfortunately for cosmic ascension, Drex was still attached to very human things.
Giving up the women around him for detached blue omniscience? Not happening.
Doctor Manhattan could keep the glowing existential crisis.
Besides, he was a Super Kryptonian.
Natural growth alone would eventually push him beyond multiversal levels anyway. There was no need to rush toward becoming some emotionally sterilized physics deity.
That left the remaining Infinity Stones.
The Reality Stone would probably be troublesome. Its ability to blur illusion and truth made it wildly unpredictable.
As for the Power Stone...
Drex almost laughed.
What in the universe could possibly compete with a Kryptonian in raw power?
It was now 2005.
Three years remained before the true rise of Iron Man.
At this point, S.W.O.R.D. had effectively taken control of global defense coordination. Talents from every corner of the world had gathered beneath its banner.
At the same time, Drex had fully absorbed Hydra's North American branches into his own control structure.
The vampire population hadn't fared much better.
Across North and South America, Drex's purge had nearly driven vampires to extinction. The slaughter had become so excessive that even Blade joked that he was running out of work.
Fortunately, Drex redirected him toward Europe and other regions soon afterward.
Vampires reproduced like mold in damp walls. Ignore them for a short time, and they flooded back.
Meanwhile, Umbrella Corporation successfully landed on the Moon.
The first wave of personnel transported by Umbrella's lunar rockets had officially begun construction of a permanent Moon base.
The world was stunned.
Governments everywhere were shocked by Umbrella's technological dominance and immediately started looking for ways to get involved.
What nobody knew was that Drex had already set foot on Mars long before the public lunar project even launched.
Still, the Moon base announcement triggered immediate interest from governments, politicians, billionaires, and corporate elites.
The reason was obvious.
Earth was becoming increasingly unstable.
Monsters appeared constantly. Catastrophic incidents were becoming routine. Entire cities had started living under the shadow of extinction-level threats.
The powerful wanted distance from the chaos.
The officially announced ten thousand residency slots for the lunar base instantly became the most valuable commodity on the planet.
People were willing to pay absurd amounts for access.
"One hundred million dollars for a single residency slot? Are these people insane?"
Urd looked genuinely baffled.
In her eyes, Umbrella's expansion was moving at ridiculous speed already. The ten-thousand-person lunar settlement was clearly just the beginning.
At this rate, the Moon would probably have a full city within a few years.
So why the desperation?
It wasn't like they were buying tickets for Noah's Ark.
"For them, that's exactly what this is."
Drex's tone remained calm.
"Don't forget the state of Earth right now. Monsters are everywhere."
Still, even if he understood their panic, Drex had no intention of letting these people grow too comfortable.
The numbers Urd saw were only the surface.
Privately, Drex had already received far more extravagant offers.
One financial tycoon proposed trading ten tons of gold, one hundred flawless oversized diamonds, and six billion dollars in exchange for ten residency slots.
Not that any of it meant much to Drex anymore.
Then things got even more ridiculous.
A drug lord demanded twenty spots.
His offer?
Two billion dollars per person.
Drex remembered the man immediately because he had already marked him as a future target.
The cartel leader was practically a shadow emperor of the global narcotics trade. More than ninety percent of the drugs produced in South America and Southeast Asia passed through his network before reaching the market. Even infamous American gangs relied on his channels.
Nobody knew how much money the man truly possessed.
Two years earlier, Interpol had frozen thirty billion dollars tied to his accounts at an international bank, and insiders claimed that amount represented less than one-fiftieth of his total fortune.
Drex rubbed his temples.
"Every lunatic on Earth is crawling out of the woodwork."
Then his eyes narrowed slightly.
A plan formed.
If the world had started treating space as a safe haven, then maybe it was time to remind humanity of a very important fact.
The universe was far more dangerous than Earth.
New York.
A city that had somehow survived catastrophe after catastrophe through sheer spite and concrete.
At this point, most insurance companies operating there had already collapsed. The surviving ones were too terrified to expand coverage, choosing instead to wait and see which apocalypse arrived next.
Inside S.W.O.R.D. headquarters, alarms suddenly lit up across a satellite monitoring station.
"Sir, you need to see this!"
An analyst rushed over immediately.
The anomaly report was sent straight to Deputy Director Nick Fury.
The reason was simple.
Director Drex Valen was busy virtually every hour of the day. Between lunar development projects and anti-monster weapons research, nobody wanted to interrupt him unless absolutely necessary.
On the screen, outer space stretched into darkness.
Then a white point of light appeared.
It pierced Earth's atmosphere at terrifying speed, friction igniting the surrounding air until it resembled a blazing red meteor descending toward the planet.
Nick Fury frowned.
"What the hell is that?"
"It isn't following a normal gravitational trajectory," the technician answered immediately.
"It's under active control. That means it's artificial."
Nick Fury's expression hardened.
Even he understood what that implied.
"You're saying…"
"An alien?"